#motherstone comic

[motherstone]

What was lost | Faces | From one mother… | What remains

Thank you @chi-the-idiot for the quality check and assistance, you really helped me out in a pinch 😭🙏 Thanks to him, the long overdue part 3 is finished! I hope you enjoy reading! ^_^

Will later post my personal notes abt this chapter:

[chi-the-idiot]

"Armor and Walls"

(Press the images for better quality)

AMULET BY KAZU KIBUISHI IS MY ROMAN EMPIRE

A while back, after the release of book 9, I started chatting with @motherstone (an INCREDIBLE artist, even if you're not an amulet fan you GOTTA check his art out) and he shared this idea he had for a comic that he wanted to make but didn't really have the time to at that moment.

And me, lowkey loving the concept, proposed the idea that I make the comic for him as a gift.

This is the result.

-Concept credits go ENTIRELY to motherstone, from Emily's and Trellis' designs to the script

-I did the art and modified a bit of the script

-And obviously, all of the characters were created by Kazu Kibuishi and belong to him and Scholastic, along with Amulet as a whole. This is fanart inspired by the series.

[secrettyrantcupcake]

Art by the straight-up incomparable https://motherstone.tumblr.com/  Go check ‘em out if you’re into Amulet or just chill art in general!

[nadacwriter]

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) (motherstone)

Any character?

Is it ok if I request Trellis?

I’m gonna tell it like it is, it has been a WHILE since i gave those books a read. I remember general info, but this is mostly gonna be fueled by a flash skim of the comics and a read on the wiki. If i get basic info wrong I do apologize!

Also, since you didn’t give me a number I’m gonna assume you meant all of them. So.

Here ya go. :)

1: Their physical weakspots Trellis gets very nervous when anything goes for his ears, or his teeth. The teeth is just a general fear point (that I share, lol) but the ears come from an incident involving cold weather and no hat.

2: Their emotional/Moral weakspots: Trellis, among his other traumas, has this fear of things he doesn’t necessarily know about. He’s afraid that he’s not doing something that’s so obvious no one has told him how to do it, they just assume he knows. Along with all of his obvious traumas, that’s one thing he fears/

3: Scars or Painful spots: Again, due to the cold weather incident, the tips of his ears are very sensitive to cold. There’s his scarred eye, of course, as well as one scar down his leg he sustained as a child.

4: Best Places to kiss on their body: The Trellis gets kissed on the nose in this house, buckaroo. Also, on the back of his neck is a good spot. IF...you tell him you’re there.

5: Guilty Pleasures: Along with his history education, Trellis gained an affinity for art and design, specifically ancient architecture and sculpture. He doesn’t want to be perceived as ‘nerdy’ though, so he keeps that to himself.

6: Their Vices (physical OR emotional): Trellis tries to stay away from vices as much as he can; however, he sometimes falls victim to thought spirals. He believes they help him reconcile with his guilt and depression, but it only makes it worse. He doesn’t swim, he wallows.

7: Their tickle spots: His sides. If you so much as hold your hand over them he jerks back.

8: Bad memories/Experiences: Too many to even begin counting, but to elaborate on ‘the cold incident’; Once, Trellis left home with nothing to protect his ears. Growing up in a tundra, his ears grew colder and colder, and he would’ve gotten frostbite (yes, Trellis) if he’d stayed out for much longer. His mother had to come and get him, which only compounded her illness. he blames himself for that. 

9: Humiliating memories: Again, a lot to mention, though he DID call a tutor ‘mom’ once.

10: Fears/Phobias: Cave crickets. DON’T look that up. trust me. Hey, HEY...trust me.

11: Bad or Petty habits: Due to trauma, he’s known fr his irritability/temper. He usually has a control on it, but some days he will just snap at people, even when he doesn’t mean it.

12: Grudges and Vendettas: Despite what it may seem, Trellis doesn’t hold grudges for very long. That reminds him of home.

13: What gets them flustered: Being proven wrong. It goes for many, but Trellis especially. Remember, he had to fight for attention, and how he used to do that was either literally fighting, or through knowing the most out of anyone in the room.

14: Forces of Habit: Trellis still walks on the edges of hardwood floors. He also hides stashes of food about the place. Nothing perishable, of course. But people will be digging around in his room and find canned goods in the closet.

15: What it takes to make them cry: A whole lot, oddly enough. But if Trellis has been bottling up emotion for a while, or if he’s been particularly low, he’ll break. And when he breaks, it’s a lot. He doesn’t cry often, so sometimes he cries for hours on end.

16: Skeletons in the closet: This is a deep dark secret he will never tell a soul, but he once attempted to take Luger’s life. He got far in his plans, too.

17: Regrets: Too many to name, but I’ll go with a light one since the past couple have been dark: there was this one book, with an interesting cover, that he never read the whole way through. He’s never been able to find a copy since he was young. He’s searched...HARD...for that book.

18: Things they’ll never admit: How early his feelings toward Emily developed. (Yeah, I know, I know)

19: People they’ve hurt/killed indirectly, how it effected them: Again, he feels a bit of guilt for his mother’s illness. He also blames himself for his father’s abusive nature. Trelis is stoic, and dislikes the idea of connections deeper than friendship. He’s convinced that the closer you are to him, the more likely you are to be set upon by some horrible fate.

20: What-If’s, Alternate timelines: We don’t have time for the whole ‘what if we set Amulet books to Coheed records’ argument that I’ve had since like high school but I’ve always pictured that if he had been taken in by someone a little more caring, he could’ve become a scholar of some sort.

21: Turning Points in their life: The thing is, Trellis considers his life a very long curve. His turning points are numerous, and he dislikes the idea that ONE single event set him down the path that he went down. But if he HAD to pick, he’d probably say something along the lines of ‘when he met Emily’ or something simple like that, if anything, just to avoid answering the question in such a roundabout way.

22: People who’ve influenced them greatly: Not to put too fine a point on it, but his interaction with Emily and Navin did influence his life quite a bit, as well as his improved relationship with Luger. But, again, Trellis views his life as more complicated than just one person changing him. If you asked him who had influenced him the most, he would shockingly say his father did: “If I didn’t have him, I never would have known what love wasn’t.”

...and in my new 15 part podcast series from WHRO studios, I’ll be breaking down how the Coheed and Cambria discography is a perfect match for the Amulet comics, now if we start with page one and the song ‘The Second Stage Turbine Blade’ from the album of the same name...

[badlywritten-stuff2]

So @motherstone had the audacity to make me feel emotions with their last comic about my sweet boi crying. So I spent all day breaking dimensions to go give my boi a hug. I'm not that great at making comics, but since I haven't done one in a while and my last one was shitty, this is a huge improvement. Yay weekends!

[cyberlights]

Here are some wips I've been working on...kinda 1st one (should be if it loads) an outfit for Trellis that I kinda was basing off a dragon age concept I find for a dancer costume. For some reason my brain equated gulfen to a desert (I actually think it was because of a comic @motherstone posted mentioning it as a desert, plus what geographical map knowledge I have (headcanons on the way for that btw)) but I thought it would be cool to create a dancer outfit...then decided to put it on Trellis 2nd is Trellis vs Elf king I think I stopped working on it because I still can't figure stone magic too well 3rd is what I was going to do for the Amulet contest, but school got in the way and it's been kinda sitting here. It was going to kinda be a sequel to something else I drew a while back,MN but I decided to do something else instead

[motherstone]

What was lost | Faces | From one mother… | What remains

Thank you @chi-the-idiot and @cyberlights for the quality check 🙌

Additional notes:

About Emily: Yes, those are indeed white hairs (largely inspired by my older sister). It was caused by immense stress during the war, and although it has already ended for a couple of years, Emily and Trellis do still reel from their harsh experiences.

About EK: any colored border means it's an event that took place in the past. In this case, this was EK's and Trellis's duel for the throne.

About Karen: how come she overheard their conversation? With the kind of people Emily and Trellis are, and the nature of their conversation, you'd think they'd close the door? Well, instead of getting the answer several months later once I release the complete comic in pdf form alongside with additional content like short comics and minor illustrations, I'll say it now: they couldn't because Emily blasted her door off its hinges a few days prior (Emily + cockroach on the door = no door).

The panel of Trellis and his mom is based on @theeio 's gift art for me back when Supernova was recently released. Thank you Spoon for letting me use it!

As for the symbolism explanation, I was hoping to release it all at once after I've finished the comic, but alas that will take forever. Therefore, I will release it that explains more about parts 1 and 2 in compiled form 👍

Minor announcement: Part 3 will be greatly delayed. This comic WILL be finished, but I will very busy this month of May, and maybe even June, so it may not be released monthly as I had planned. I'm terribly sorry for the inconvenience :(

[motherstone]

What was lost | Faces | From one mother... | What remains

Additional notes:

Page 1-2: Gulfen was suffering a drought at that time, and Trellis’s mother and her brother were hoping to seek help from Valcor to get some water in their village. The elven elder Trellis is talking to has a birthmark, and it’s the same man on page 4.

The Western part of Gulfen is more of a desert because of the mountain ranges. The Eastern part is more diverse in terms of biomes.

Page 3-4: Some of the poses here are referenced from the Children’s Bible Story Book, because I was going insane. I’m drawing this for fun, not profit, so I had to make my work as efficient and as fast as possible while maintaining its quality.

The two soldiers are a commander and her 2nd-in-command. In elven pan-culture, nicking, cutting half, or cutting off the entire ears is to indicate that that person is a criminal, depending on the severity of the crime. A variation of the punishment is also cutting off the nose in some areas.

The Elf King took several prisoners off of death row and life sentences to further bulk up his army with vicious people, and the commander was one of the few officers willing to take that criminal under her command.

Page 5-6: Virgil and Luger cameo. I like to think Virgil played a part in why Trellis gets spared, and Luger is the one taking him away.

I will add analysis notes after I posted all the parts, to show further depth in the comic, but other than that, I'll keep it at a minimum, for now.

[motherstone]

Nightmare

or where Alma gets an idea of what Trellis may have experienced. Thank you @sovonight for this helpful post ^_^ I wanted to sharpen my comic-making skills, so I initially planned to make a few short comics in between working on What Remains, except I kinda messed up on this one, bc it's waaay more polished and longer than I intended 💀 well, I'm very happy w the end result regardless!

Notes:

Mmmm I think I ended up disturbing my sister over this one, and frankly, one of Trellis's expressions was far scarier than I envisioned 😱 but that aside, this was initially meant to be a fic, but it was too long, and I'm not very good at words, so I figured a comic summarized better than whatever I had to say.

I thought it'd be interesting to depict a rare side of Trellis at his most vulnerable, terrified, and hostile - esp since in What Remains we get to see him more composed, if rather somber and with a "dead" look in his eyes. It's a sad contrast for sure. "Palace" is a trigger word for Trellis, as Valcor is the abusive place he's been trying to escape for a long time.

The OCs here are Alma, who we see in What Remains in her beta design, and another OC, who was also in What Remains and I'm still working on a name yet (the one with the birthmark on her face). They serve as Trellis's personal guards, so they exist outside the hierarchy of the military. Alma's face tattoos are meant to indicate she's a warrior from where she's from, and the two braids are to show she's unmarried (which a cultural thing from East Gulfen).

The comic is set 2 years post-war - a WIP I call Post rewrite - just a few weeks after Trellis's coronation. Gulfen switched capital cities, old government officials are deposed and/or incarcerated, and everyone is adjusting as best as they could with their new roles. Trellis adapted fine, but the more mundane parts of his life... Not so much.

It gets touched upon on another illustration, hence Alma is the one who was sent to find Trellis and escort him throughout Gulfen, and they spent a year travelling together, initially she was quite grating towards Trellis, but mellowed out once she gets some suspicion that Trellis was abused sometime in the past, not living a privileged life as she assumed.

This comic is "canon" to Post Rewrite, meaning that it's extremely likely it will not be subjected to any changes.

[motherstone]

"This isn't a competition —!"

"? I thought we were talking about mothers..?"

Jokes on u I have a fanfic idea so devastating,

Unrendered bc I'm impatient AF. Not sure if I got the timing right. I'm also working on a comic rn so maybe I'll render and subtitle it at a later time 😗

[motherstone]

Trust

Thank you to @time2andspace for beta-ing and giving me fantastic ideas ^_^

PS: for a fun experience, zoom in for details! 😄

[motherstone]

Comic breakdown (symbolisms and stuff)

Keeping it under a readmore as not to take it up, because uh, this is pretty long

The very first panel lands smack dab in the middle of the conflict – Emily and Trellis being cornered and being on the very precipice of a cliff and their survival. The barrier being in the middle shows the two threats that traps them – a humongous monster, and the void below.

From the get go, it gets established that the barrier serves as the actual panels except for a select scenes where we can see very close up shots of the characters. It serves as an active part of the story as a character itself, even showing cracks (which will be important later).

The very first panel lands smack dab in the middle of the conflict – Emily and Trellis being cornered and being on the very precipice of a cliff and their survival. The barrier being in the middle shows the two threats that traps them – a humongous monster, and the void below.

From the get go, it gets established that the barrier serves as the actual panels except for a select scenes where we can see very close up shots of the characters. It serves as an active part of the story as a character itself, even showing cracks (which will be important later).

The audience may get a clear shot of their reactions, but you gotta remember – neither of them can’t. They have no idea the other is also on the edge of despair, although we go more in depth with Trellis.

The black, white, and red coloring all serve to appear jarring and harsh to the viewer -which is how Trellis views those memories. The first is when the Elf King scars him, the second is after Luger incapacitates him in book 2, and the last is when the Voice taunts him after Emily transforms – all of these memories reminding Trellis of his weakness and failures – and if you zoomed in, it’s actually typed into the background over and over, a subtle yet unrelenting constant reminder.

This then also contrasts with the 4th memory, that, despite being on the background, is vivid and in full color – it’s the act that Trellis regrets and feels guilty of the most and haunts him greatly.

Which leads to this:

Trellis arms droop, and his hands tremble. He’s in the dark and the barrier has also but disappeared (I kinda headcanon he sees that mastering it makes him feel more safe and secure in his control), which represents his state of mind, vulnerable, scared, and insecure.

Which also represents by the black, desaturated colors in the panel he is in, while Emily is colorful in the light – which is how he view each other.

Once again, they juxtapose one another – we are looking at Trellis downwards – emphasized with the flow of the energies behind him, we can’t see his face, his eyes in the shadows, and it looks like he’s CONTAINED. While we are looking at Emily upwards – also emphasized by the flow of energies, and we can see her illuminating her own light despite not activating her amulet, and she overlaps the panels above her, appearing she is not contained.

The memories panels have bluish coloring and blends well with the other colors of the scene, showing these memories are not remembered as bad, or even fondly – it also serves as the memories that they share with one another and what connects them both. It contains scenes of Emily rescuing Trellis from book 3, them confronting the shadows in book 5 (not the hug scene alas else it’ll be repetitive, I intended the last panel to be that), and the last is book 8 in my head – Trellis gets Emily back. In fact, the look like glowing a bit.

The texts are also in single line in comparison to the rant-like depiction in the previous page. It symbolizes on how their friendships solidified over time – until it becomes unbreakable in the last panel.

Also, Trellis’s question aligns with the last panel - this is intentional, because it shows his question is already answered.

Remember me saying the barrier being important as a character earlier on?? Yeah, well know we can see it break as the tentacles crushes it in its grip.

God, I keep making contradictions, don’t I?? Once again, their roles are reverse – Trellis is now looking upwards, while Emily is looking downwards. Also I uhhhh hard to explain but the blood flowing downwards is contrasted with Emily’s tears floating upwards -somethin something having a bit of the other…

Also, where Emily in the previous page realizes Trellis is just as scared as she was, this is when Trellis realizes vice versa.

Ok, ngl, I’m patting myself on the back for this one because the teardrop of sheer sadness transforming into a barrier that would be the hope that may or may not save them – tbh, I’m kinda surprised how I came up w that one.

Which leads to the ending!! Trellis’s dialogue at the bottom is seen last, almost like a quiet plea. We can see the barrier is not fully solid.

But, the next panel gives us hope. Because despite the large wave of destruction, it does imply Trellis managed to get his barrier strong enough to cause a large impact. Whether he survived the strain of using his powers for such an incredibly taxing feat – is up to you.

[motherstone]

(Different Anon) I honestly Think that Trellis should have been the one to off the elf king except for Emily. I think this because it was trellis who has spent all of his childhood under his fathers torture. I feel like having Emily do the work for him is just the author pushing trellis aside. I really hope we get a scene where trellis confronts the elf king in book nine. Btw ur artwork is bom!!! keep up da good work!!

Op I agree with every thing you've just said. Here's a comic of Trellis confronting the Elf Kingbfor you 👑:

[motherstone]

How I draw Emily and Trellis

A redraw of the one I did? Last year? Two years ago? Anyways,

Painting Emily

I opt for warm and colorful colors for Emily, to make her lively, showcasing her more agressive nature. Her amulet is pink in the middle, purple at the rim as a reference to how it looked like in The Stonekeeper. Her clothing folds are more loopy and curvy.

She has a more stout and shorter body than Trellis, eyes and face round to show she's younger but with enough sharpness to show she's maturr, hair poofy. Two fringes on front, hair framing her face, shoulder length.

Painting Trellis

He's older, so his face is more mature, with narrow eyes to show he's keen and smart. Trellis only has one fringe, in the middle of his face. Slight eyebags. I chose duller and fewer colors for him to show his calmer nature. His hair is longer and straight.

His amulet is different than what The Cloud Searchers show, more like, err a subtle nod towards yin yang? A more balanced look I suppose. I make his cloth creases more angular.

Basically, I strive for contrast! :)

[motherstone]

Nightmare

Have a Tremily everyone.

[motherstone]

You know what this fandom needs? A sleep-deprived fueled comic of Trellis calling other people sluts as he downs an alcoholic drink he is too young for